


Birthday Present

by CharWright5



Series: House of Wolves [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Birthdays, Fluff and Angst, Gen, flangst, happy ending ???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharWright5/pseuds/CharWright5
Summary: As a triplet, Tore hates sharing his birthday. Until suddenly, it doesn't seem so bad...





	Birthday Present

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicate to my girl DREW for her birthday, since she loves Tore and the twins. Hope your day is amazing as you.
> 
> Takes place roughly ten years or so before the first book in the series.

"Sharing a birthday sucks."

It was a thought Tore often had--mainly every single year on said shared birthday--but had never voiced out loud. And he honestly wasn't ever going to voice it out loud, forever the suffer in silence type--which seemed to be a shared trait amongst his siblings--and hadn't meant to voice it out loud, but the way three heads snapped to him showed that, whoops! He had done that very thing.

Arik sat to his right at the round table, eyebrow cocked, mouth open where his fork was halfway to it. Keir was on Tore's left, scowling, chewing with exaggerated motions, leg paused where it had been bouncing under the table. Rowyn was across from him, green eyes indecipherable, lips pressed together in a hard line as her fork tapped the slice of cake on her plate. But her scent was melancholic and upset and Tore's wolf whined in shame inside his head. 

Oh. Oh whoops. Shit.

It was clearly one of those "check your privilege" moments, where Tore was complaining about something he should've been glad to have. Because while sharing a birthday _did_ in fact suck, at least his brothers were still around to celebrate it with him. Unlike Rowyn, whose twin had been gone for over two-hundred years at that point.

Arik clacked his mouth shut, putting his fork down in order to pick his black coffee up. He clearly had no idea what to say, none of them did. Rowyn had always been handled with care even before everything had happened. And when they got her back... She was like one of those Dresden Dolls their mother used to collect, with the delicate lace none of them were allowed to touch or else it would break and shatter. All of them were afraid of those dolls, so all of them were afraid of saying the wrong thing to Rowyn.

Way to ruin the mood, he thought to himself. Not that there'd been much of a mood to begin with. Birthdays with them weren't the stereotype shown on tv and movies. Sure there was cake and they received the requisite "happy birthdays" from one another and various Alphas and Packs from around the continent, but there were no gifts, no parties. Just this, and that was only because their father wasn't around to tell them they couldn't and none of them had the heart to tell Rowyn she couldn't bake them some cakes.

Plural of course. That was another thing unlike that stereotype: there was never just one cake.

At least their father had allowed that much growing up but chances were it was to appease Rowyn's request once more.

The silence that had descended felt awkward, heavy, and Tore's wolf hid its head under its paw and Tore felt like doing the same thing. Socializing had never been his strong suit and now he was screwing it up with his own siblings. Amazing.

Keir dropped his own fork with a clatter, swallowing before he shifted in his seat, turning halfway to Tore with an arm slung over the back. "Steal a piece of a guy's cake once--"

"It was the entire cake," Tore interrupted, glaring. "And it was more than once."

The older one made an offended noise, sputtering, and he turned to Arik, pointing at Tore with a flabbergasted look on his face as though silently asking if he could believe this shit.

"Five times, if my memory is correct," Arik replied with a pointed look at Keir as he put his mug back on the table.

"Five and a half," Tore correct, Keir turning to him with a scowl. "He tried to in 1939 but I punched him in the face."

Keir tipped his nose in the air and huffed. "I can't be blamed for that one."

"You literally can because it was literally your own fault."

Arik began muttering to himself in Italian as he roughed his hands over his face and Rowyn giggled behind her hand, mouth full of cake, and Keir continued to insist it wasn't his fault while Tore continued to point out that, yes, it really was. It felt normal, like old times, the heaviness of the previous moment gone.

Until Arik's phone rang and he got a look at the screen, his face falling and scent becoming more worried and dark. Silence hit as they all gave him concern looks and he faked a reassuring smile that none of them believed. "I gotta take this," he muttered, scooting the chair back with a loud scrape that was harsh on Tore's ears. The Alpha strode out the kitchen and to the study down the hall, closing the door and making the room soundproof.

Meaning no eavesdropping.

"Wow," Keir commented, eyebrows bobbing, and he shifted so he was sitting properly on the chair once more. "Gotta be something serious if we're not allowed to hear it."

Tore had a feeling he was mainly talking about himself, being the Beta and all. If it were Shifter business, Arik would've told Keir to follow, would've wanted him in the room listening in on every word. A lot of times Tore was invited, too, Arik wanting to keep him up to date on everything as well as get another opinion on what to do.

But with both of them locked out...

"Must be something private," he muttered absently before turning to Keir with a questioning frown. "You don't think he's, ya know? With someone?"

It was the only thing Tore could think of but even that seemed far-fetched. Arik hadn't been with anyone since Marisol and that had been in the late 1700s.

At least, he hadn't been with anyone as far as they knew.

Keir snorted so hard his head rocked. "Arik? No way." His fingers drummed absently on the table and Rowyn began tapping her cake with her fork again. "Still he's up to something. Has been for a while. This isn't the first time he's locked himself in that study for a private phone call."

Tore's eyes went wide, brows shooting up. "Not concerning at all," he said sarcastically, hating the bitter scent of worry rolling off Rowyn.

Keir shrugged helplessly, nerves in his own scent, and Tore felt his wolf pace around in distress.

Not good. At all.

The three of them sat in silent contemplation, picking at their cakes rather than eating them, all wondering what was going on, who was Arik talking to, what was it about.

It felt like a long time before the door down the hall finally opened and Arik shuffled his way back into the kitchen. His hand was already rubbing at his jaw, a bad sign if Tore ever saw one, and the Historian gave a worried glance to Keir who shot one back before focusing on their older brother.

"Everything okay?"

"Hmm?" Arik replied, as though he'd been lost in thought, snapped out of it. "Yeah. That, uh, that was Wolfgang von Hammersmark," he began, putting his hands on the back of the chair he'd been using and letting out a deep sigh.

Tore frowned, mentally snickering at how obvious the name "Wolfgang" was, only to remember their surname translated to "son of the wolf leader". Then he was struck by the familiarity of the moniker Arik had just dropped.

"Where do I know that name from?"

"High Alpha of the Wolf Warriors," Keir answered, not taking his eyes off Arik. "He's the one in charge of all of them."

Oh. Right.

"I've been in contact with him over the past week or so and he just informed me that he has a bead on Captain Gunnar Jaeger," Arik explained and Tore's frown deepened until he realized...

"Father changed his name when he had him enlisted."

Rowyn perked up on the other side of the table, sitting up straighter, her heart pounding and scent blossoming into something hopeful. Keir was more cautious for once, staring at Arik through slightly narrowed eyes. Tore felt the same, not wanting to get his hopes up over any of it.

But still...

The Alpha nodded, licking his lips before continuing. "High Alpha von Hammersmark has approved Captain Jaeger's honorable discharge and has guaranteed that he will personally track the Warrior down and hand-deliver him to us personally."

Goddess Above, Arik had actually done it.

"So," Rowyn began, tremulously, hands shaking where she put them on the table. "So he's alive and okay and-and coming _home_?"

"As far as von Hammersmark knows, yes. And he'll have Gunnar back to us within a year."

"How good is his word?" Keir questioned, still uncharacteristically cautious and serious and Tore wondered why he couldn't behave that way more often. The prick.

"We either get Gunnar," Arik began, voice hard as he straightened up and folded his arms over his chest. "Or I get von Hammersmark's head in a box."

Tore's eyebrows shot up. Pretty good guarantee.

"I told him he has six months. Gunnar's return is long overdue as it is."

Rowyn shot out of her seat faster than Tore had ever seen her move and Arik barely had time to unfold his arms before she was crashing against him and engulfing him in a fierce hug. The eldest brother stood stunned for a moment, glancing at his two younger ones in shock before carefully wrapping his arms around her and returning the embrace. Keir and Tore exchanged twin looks of surprise themselves, both stunned at Rowyn's behavior and at the fact that their younger brother was coming home.

And as Tore turned back to find Rowyn's shoulders shaking, her head buried in the crook of Arik's neck and the salt of her tears hanging in the air, he realized that that birthday featured a present for her more than for them. Suddenly sharing his birthday didn't seem like all that bad a thing.


End file.
